4th Innings Stats

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Thought I'd forward this from the ABC forum. Interesting stats indeed.
Originally posted by silly point

http://www-aus.cricket.org/link_to_database/ARCHIVE/CRICKET_NEWS/2003/NOV/003411_COL-STATS_14NOV2003.html

Interesting extract from an article on 4th innings performances suggesting KJnr was a much better 4th innings performer than KSnr:

...In fact, among the current-day batsmen who meet the 700-run criterion, Rahul Dravid is the best fourth-innings performer, outdoing Tendulkar, Brian Lara and Steve Waugh, who has struggled to get among the runs in the last innings. A tally of 533 runs in 30 knocks with just one fifty is a miserable return for a man rated as arguably the best batsman when the chips are down. It's not even as if most of his fourth-innings failures happened early in his career, when he was a much lesser batsman - 23 out of those 30 innings came after 1992, by which time he had established himself as one of the leading batsmen in the team. Sample his brother Mark's figures - 820 runs at 41. Pretty good for someone who, for much of his career, was believed to be all grace and no grit.

How the current batsmen have fared
in the fourth innings

Inns NO Runs Ave Career ave
23 7 720 45.00 54.37 Dravid
35 5 1182 39.40 51.11 Lara
29 9 735 36.75 44.87 Kirsten
31 9 785 35.68 56.57 Tendulkar
--
30 7 533 23.17 51.25 S Waugh

Difficult to defend KSnr on this one. I guess my only defence would be that obviously if his 4th Innings (and indeed his 3rd Innings stats) are so poor, it indicates that his stats when batting first are good (a 60+ average, in fact).

As this is the time when you set up a score to *win* a game, and winning is very much Steve's primary philosophy, this may go some way to explaining it.

― Poseiden (Poseiden), Monday, 17 November 2003 08:35 (twenty-one years ago)

He doesn't get to bat in the second innings unless things are going badly ...

― pieman (pieman), Monday, 17 November 2003 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

He flopped in both Sydney and Melbourne in fourth innings last summer but in Perth v NZ the summer before, his 67 on the last day practically removed the possibility of a NZ win. Besides those I can't remember him being needed in a fourth innings recently.

― Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Despite not doing it often - expecially of late - you can't argue with the statistics, cn you? Ave 23.17

Would be interesting to see the results and scorecards of the games in question. How many were dead rubber collapses, for instance?

― tailender (tailender), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 08:53 (twenty-one years ago)

What's with this 700-run qualification garbage? It's obviously done so they can shun the NLWL, who fares better than all of them but falls nine runs short of the "magical" 700 mark.

NLWL in the fourth innings: 691 runs in 18 innings (three not outs) at 46.06.

Gilly's fourth innings record isn't too shabby either, 313 runs at 104.33.

― Ross (Ross), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 10:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Ummmmm . . .

It's a standard qualification with stats, Ross. And given that the point of this list is to point out Tugga's poor showing, it seems a little churlish of you to object to the NLWL's omission.

― tailender (tailender), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 10:14 (twenty-one years ago)

But why choose 700 as the minimum qualification? Generally, a qualification in runs is along the lines of 500 or 1000. 700 just seems to be a random number.

Anyway, if you're interested in Steve's fourth innings efforts, here's a link to all of them, hopefully the length of the link doesn't ruin the format of the page.

http://statserver.cricket.org/perl/sdb/sdb_player.pl/?playerid=1795&class=testplayer&filter=basic&team=0&opposition=0¬opposition=0&season=0&homeaway=0&continent=0&country=0¬country=0&groundid=0&startdefault=1985-12-26&start=1985-12-26&enddefault=2003-10-20&end=2003-10-20&tourneyid=0&finals=0&daynight=0&toss=0&scheduledovers=0&scheduleddays=0&innings=4&result=0&followon=0&seriesresult=0&captain=0&keeper=0&dnp=0&recent=&viewtype=bat_list&runslow=&runshigh=&batposition=0&dismissal=0&bowposition=0&ballslow=&ballshigh=&bpof=0&overslow=&overshigh=&conclow=&conchigh=&wicketslow=&wicketshigh=&dismissalslow=&dismissalshigh=&caughtlow=&caughthigh=&caughttype=0&stumpedlow=&stumpedhigh=&csearch=&submit=1

― Ross (Ross), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 10:46 (twenty-one years ago)

geez Ross, if you can't baffle them with bullshit I suppose you just gotta blind 'em with facts ...

― pieman (pieman), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Interesting stuff, actually.

30 innings. Highest score 67. That was the only time he passed 50 - in fact, he only got one other score over 40, and only three in total over 30. And those two highest scores were in draws.

Of the 30 innings, 13 were losses, 10 wins, 7 draws.

He's done marginally better since he took over the captaincy, but you have to consider that in light of the relative weakness of cricket outside of Australia.

― tailender (tailender), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually his best 4th innings was none of those you mention. His 21 not out in partnership with Boon at Lords in 1989, after AB and Jones had made one run between them and reduced Australia to 4-67 chasing 118, probably saved Australia from yet another small-target debacle.

― Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

He and the unlikely BJ saved Australia in another 4th innings collapse on the following tour, IIRC Fred ...

― pieman (pieman), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 13:02 (twenty-one years ago)

That was the 47 not out. I remember BJ and Steve batted through the last session at Trent Bridge after those two legendary Test bowlers Caddick and McCague took six wickets in the middle session of the last day. With about 20 minutes to go BJ went from 44 to 50 with this ridiculous cross-batted slog (similar to the six Healy won the match with in Sith F a few years later) and Steve gave him the limpest handshake of all time then reamed him right out about being so irresponsible, and fair enough too. The percentage on that shot (like Healy's) wouldn't have gotten him a drink-drive conviction, and it would have given the Poms about six overs to get the last three wickets if he had holed out.

(Healy's 4th-innings stats would be pretty foul as well I'd guess.)

― Fred Nerk (Fred Nerk), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 14:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I think you raise an interesting point, Fred.
Stats are all about *context*- just because Waugh has a poor 4th Innings average doesn't mean you can conclude that he is not "the best batsman when the chips are down".
Lara has a far superior 4th Innings Average, but honestly who would you pick in a side to save a game for you? Often in the 4th Innings you are not scoring runs to *win* a game, but occupying time at the crease to *save* a game.

Nice to see a few more people coming over to this messageboard as well.

― Poseiden (Poseiden), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 01:34 (twenty-one years ago)

"Often in the 4th Innings you are not scoring runs to *win* a game, but occupying time at the crease to *save* a game."

Maybe my perceptions are at fault, but as a captain Waugh has always seemed to me to be so gung-ho on winning games, that the team has lost the ability to save them.

― tailender (tailender), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 07:41 (twenty-one years ago)

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